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“Do we sit and watch our world burn? Do we dig deeper as it struggles to turn? Do we slowly lose our human will? Do we all just stay there, standing still? Is this the price of paradise?” “Please, please bring my father back.” “My Asian heritage makes me feel like an outsider, always looking [...]

It was the first sign of what the evening would become. And it was thrilling.

Parents. Grandparents. Siblings. Friends. Teachers. And the young artists themselves, proud of work that had earned its place on the walls of one of Saint Paul’s most beloved landmarks. Three hundred and twenty people filled Landmark Center until there wasn’t a seat left, and staff quickly brought in more chairs, and then MORE CHAIRS, because that is what you do when a community shows up like this.

I think I can speak for most of us in the community when I say that the Gregorian calendar year 2026 has started off with a bang. As I write to you, COMPAS blog readers, this Tuesday, February 17th, one morning after witnessing the appropriately themed “This is Culturally Inappropriate” Dave Chappelle comedy concert, I can’t help but think of his words from his latest Netflix special, The Unstoppable.

A woman walked into the Seward Community Support Program (CSP) & Drop-In Center, unhoused, visibly struggling, and tearful about her circumstances. While chatting with staff, she noticed people decorating ceramic dishes with colorful markers. “Wait, what’s going on here?” she asked. Soon, she was creating her own beautifully decorated plate.

This is what happens when art creates space for connection. People show up as themselves and discover they belong.

What does it mean to walk into a concert carrying the weight of the world and leave lighter, stronger, and ready for what comes next? Joe Davis knows. And with Diaspora: On the Rise (Sat, Feb 21, 7:00 pm at Northrop Memorial Auditorium), he’s designed an experience to do exactly that.

“I want people to walk out of the auditorium feeling a lot better than they did when they came in,” he explains.

It’s an ambitious promise, but Joe isn’t new to the work of transformation.

On Friday nights, neuroscientist Susan Magsamen pushes the coffee table aside and dances in her living room with her husband. They are, by her own admission, not great dancers. They do it anyway because it makes them feel more alive.

Her research helps explain why. As co‑author of Your Brain on Art and director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins, she has spent years studying what happens when we sing, draw, move, or listen. Older adults who engage in the arts even a few times a year have a lower risk of dying over the next decade than those who don’t. Twenty to forty‑five minutes of creative activity can lower cortisol, our main stress hormone, and support better mental health and quality of life.

The future will not arrive on its own. It will take shape through what we choose to protect, whose humanity we recognize, and which stories we carry forward. It will be shaped by how well we honor connection, and by how creativity helps us recognize ourselves as part of the same narrative, bound to one another through a shared heartbeat.
COMPAS remains committed to this work. For more than fifty years, we have walked alongside our communities. We intend to be here with them through this moment and beyond, using creativity to heal and help imagine what comes next